


Coming Home

by grimcognito



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mostly Fluff, No Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 09:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1300822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimcognito/pseuds/grimcognito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky wakes up, and he's determined to make his way back to Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

It was a railroad worker who discovered him, he found out later. The crew had been blasting tunnels through the mountain for a new railway after the last had been destroyed in a snow slide. Bucky isn’t sure he’s happy or not that he wasn’t blown to pieces and that he’d somehow survived seventy goddamn years in a block of ice. 

The fall hadn’t left him undamaged though, broken arm and leg, five cracked ribs, a hell of a head wound and a dislocated shoulder left him with a few interesting scars. The largest was up the length of his forearm, where the bone had sliced through his skin, though it was less obvious than the jagged line of healed skin that ran from his left temple to his cheekbone. 

The doctors (and their fancy new machines beeping and flashing and whirring the whole while) were shocked he’d survived, to say the least. The fall should have killed him, and no normal human could have been revived from a frozen state, much less recover from the kind of injuries he’d had. Bucky knew why. All those days being stuck with needles in Schmidt’s lab had done something to him. He still felt phantom pains from the memories of liquid fire pushing into his veins, like they were trying to burn him from the inside out. It had changed something in him, like the super-serum had done to Steve—and oh God, Steve. _Steve._ Seventy years. Seventy fucking years. 

There was no way Steve was alive, and that thought made Bucky colder than the ice ever could. Even worse, he knew, no matter how long Steve’s life was after Bucky fell from that train, he’d carried the guilt as if he’d pushed him off the cliff himself. That was just the kind of man Steve is. Was. It’s too much to think about, hurts too much to think that name, and Bucky just can’t, so he sort of shut himself off, the way he’d done in that HYDRA lab, and refused to let those thoughts enter his mind while his body slowly healed. 

It wasn’t until two weeks later, when one of the doctor’s rushed in, wide-eyed and looking torn between elation and wariness as he darted his attention between Bucky and the other men in white coats. Doctors, scientists, Bucky didn’t know or care. The man settled on stumbling through whatever news had him so worked up in Russian, probably because Bucky had shown some competence in German before he’d stopped talking.

Bucky guessed they wouldn’t know that he was actually better at Russian than German, seeing as any files on him were probably dust by now. He wasn’t fluent, but he caught enough to understand that the man had found news of another person who’d been preserved in ice. Someone important. An American soldier. 

Suddenly Bucky was on his feet, machines beeping wildly as he snatched up the man, not caring that standing made his leg ache, sharp and deep, or that the other white-coats looked ready to stab him with a sedative. 

“What was his name?” Bucky demanded roughly.

The man clawed ineffectively at Bucky’s hand, which was fisted in the collar of his shirt, hefting him onto his toes. Bucky just yanked him closer, this time speaking in Russian. “What. Was. His. Name?” 

The man shook his head, and Bucky felt the sting of a needle in his neck, his adrenaline holding the sedative off just long enough for him to hear, “I don’t know, they just called him Captain America.”  
…………

Seven months. It had taken seven months to escape from Germany, from another lab, this one a government job that wanted to know exactly what was different in his blood. Though Bucky had to admit, this time was a lot less hellish, physically at least—because knowing Steve was out there without him burned him up—but it was still a lab and he had still been a prisoner in it. 

The government officials that came to see him—like kids at a zoo, just in fancier suits and with harder eyes—told him with no small amount of ill-disguised pleasure that he was long dead as far as his own country knew, and no one would be coming to find him. Bucky hadn’t spoken to them either, keeping up the act that he’d tuned out the world, even as his mind worked overtime to come up with an escape plan. And finally, finally, the perfect moment had come, with the right combination of his guard’s complacency and one ambitious scientist working late. He was long gone by the time the morning shift began, riding a stolen motorcycle in the direction of what he assumed was still Germany’s border. 

It was a hell of a lot harder to get across country lines than it used to be, he soon found, and that left him wandering from small town to small town, trying not to look too shell-shocked by the way the world had changed, and hoping his German wasn’t so old-fashioned as to be suspicious. It wasn’t just like waking up in the future, it was like waking up on a whole new planet, where he had to relearn body language and keep up with a dialect he’d been only rudimentary with seven decades ago. 

But even as he struggled to catch up with the times and outrun the government, a flicker of hope burned in him. He tucked his hands in his pockets every now and then, one holding gently onto the carefully folded news clipping of Steve’s shield being hauled from ice. Bucky couldn’t believe they’d gone out the same way, though from what he could gather from the article, Steve hadn’t fallen, he’d driven HYDRA into the ground. 

Of course he had, because that was pure Steve, though once Bucky found him he’d give him a piece of his mind about crashing planes while he was still in them. Or maybe he wouldn’t, because it meant Steve was here, in this time, which should have been impossible but somehow wasn’t. Steve was alive, and no force on Earth would keep Bucky from reaching him, he couldn’t fail again. 

He finally found a place to sneak across the border, full of trees and without a scrap of civilization nearby, which was a miracle really, as far as he could tell. Bucky didn’t remember there being this many people, he could have sworn this was mostly woods and uncultivated land last time he’d seen the map, leaning over it with Steve, who was passing out firm orders to his Howling Commandos.  
…………

It was while he was in France, trying to figure out how to cross an ocean without a single form of identification or money to his name, that they caught him. He’d have tried forging papers if he could, but he’d seen the kind of passports people held now, and they were so far from what Bucky had used that he had no idea where to start. 

At least he’d stopped gaping around like a fish on the rocks every time he saw something new, or the price of, well, anything. Half a fiver for a loaf of bread? Was everyone in the future rich? Did they trade bars of fucking gold to get food? Bucky had guiltily resorted to stealing—only what he absolutely needed, and only what could be easily overlooked or replaced. He could practically feel Steve disappointed stare, and he couldn’t wait to see it for real. 

It was in that single moment of less than perfect awareness, thinking up the possible ways his reunion with Steve could go, that he was hit. He saw the tiny dart in his arm before he felt it, a sharp point of pain that quickly went numb, and in the moments between the drug spreading and him actually succumbing to it, black-suited figures started to swarm in on him. Bucky wondered briefly what had taken them so long, then… nothing.  
…………

When he woke again, half afraid it had been another few decades, he was in a bed, in the most bland room he’d ever seen in his life. At least it wasn’t another lab, he wasn’t sure how rational he could stay if he’d woken up in one of those again. Not even a minute later, a man walked in, dressed in a black suit and overcoat, eyepatch over one eye and glaring at him with the other. “The name is Nick Fury, and if you are who we think you are, then there’s someone we know you really want to meet.”  
…………

Bucky learned that Steve was running a new team now, one that’s far less cohesive than the Howling commandos. And a hell of a lot more powerful, judging by the videos—calling them films got him odd looks—that they made him watch on what they claimed was a computer but looked more like a thick plastic pad with a screen, and on televisions—or maybe those were computers too, Bucky didn’t care enough to ask, he wanted to see Steve—that were thin enough to be hung on a wall like a picture frame. 

A man that could fly in a suit of armor, a man who turned into a raging green beast, a godling that could summon lightning from the sky, a woman with a look in her eye that Bucky instantly recognized as ‘killer’ before she proved it with fighting skills Bucky had only dreamed of. At least the last man, Bucky could maybe hold his own against, had no superpowers, though Bucky suspected that might be a lie, once he saw the video of him firing a shot behind himself with deadly accuracy, on a moving target, without even moving his eyes. 

Then there was the question of what the hell those things they’re fighting were. Bucky’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to know. Fury tells him anyway and Bucky’s positive he hadn’t wanted to know. He does his best to hide his shock at the idea that aliens are not only real, but more than capable of wiping out humanity if it weren’t for this team. It’s more than a little familiar. Aliens, ancient magic, crazy power-hungry asshats; apparently, some things didn’t change all that much. 

And Steve. The moment Bucky saw him, fighting along these strangers, protecting the world again, he nearly snapped the damn thing in half, he clutched it so hard. Fury had a smug look on his half-blind mug; the bastard knew he’d finally react to something, and knew that something would be Steve. 

For a moment, the worry that this was all an elaborate trap that never quite stopped nagging at him spiked high, and Bucky tensed, ready to fight, only to freeze when Fury announced that Bucky would finally get to meet them all the next morning, at their weekly meeting. He was almost tempted to say thank you, but didn’t. If Fury was good on his word, then Bucky would thank him. After he saw Steve. 

The next day, Bucky was led to a new room, which was a nice change from the interrogation room and his bunk, the only two places he’d been allowed the whole three weeks he’d been here, doing nothing but answering questions and taking truth detector tests or whatever they used now in the future. 

Most of the doors were the same all over the hall, but this one was double the size of the others and had an imprint of the SHIELD insignia. They slid open and Bucky was sure his heart had just tripped over itself in an attempt to literally beat its way from his ribcage. Because there was Steve; turned away, but there was no mistaking that blond hair and still-not-quite-familiar form. 

The others were there too, but Bucky forgot every bit of his training in that moment, eyes locked on Steve as he turned to see what the dark haired man he was speaking with—Tony, that’s his name, the newest Stark—was staring at. And suddenly, those blue eyes are looking at him and Bucky couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, as Steve’s face went blank. 

He was afraid for a long second that Steve had forgotten him, maybe forgotten everything in the crash, until Steve’s expression collapsed into a heartbreaking mix of hope and anguish. “Bucky?” 

The broken way Steve said his name had Bucky moving a step forward, because nothing has ever had quite the power over him like Steve hurting. His own voice was rough as well, too much emotion trying to fit in too few words. “Yeah, Steve. It’s me.” 

Steve took two long strides like he couldn’t hold himself back anymore, raised his arms as if to reach out, then suddenly snatched them away again, curling his hands into fists and forcing them down to his sides. His eyes were still on Bucky, who was trying to figure out why Steve was just looking more and more hurt. Bucky needed to make that pain go away but he didn’t know how because he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. 

Steve was shaking—Bucky was too, but that wasn’t important, and Steve’s was much more obvious—and then he was crying, tears trailing slowly after one another as his eyes welled up. “Bucky. Oh, god, Bucky. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—” He pushed the words past gritted teeth and Bucky understood. 

He knew Steve would be carrying around the weight of his death, letting the guilt fester as he kept pushing it down until it broke him. Bucky wouldn’t let it though. He lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Steve’s tense body, pushing in as close as he could until his feet were bracketed by Steve’s and they pressed together from knee to chest. 

Bucky tucked his face into the curve of Steve’s neck and shoulder, still thrown off by the difference in their height as he squeezed his arms tighter. “Don’t. Don’t you dare. There’s not a damned thing to be sorry for.” 

Steve shook under his hands, and Bucky knew he was still crying because his shoulder began to grow damp where Steve pressed his face to it, his arms finally, finally coming up so he could clutch the back of Bucky’s thin jacket. 

There was talking going on around them, but Bucky had more important things to pay attention to. He had Steve to pay attention to, and the rest of the world could crumble as far as he was concerned. 

He had everything he needed right here.

**Author's Note:**

> Standard Disclaimers Apply. I won nothing from either the Captain America or Avengers franchise, they belong to Marvel and Disney and I make no profit from this. I own nothing but the arrangement of words that make up this story.


End file.
